Thursday, January 10, 2013

Reckless Endangerment

With
a surfeit of stupidity remarkable even for journalists, the NY Journal News has
seen fit to treat American citizens, guilty of nothing more than the exercise
of a legitimate right secured by the Constitution, as if they were convicted sex offenders
or child molesters.
Their offense in the eyes of the reporters and editors? The
possession of a legally registered hand gun. The penalty imposed by these soi-disant judges for this crime? An interactive map revealing the names and addresses tens of thousands of people who only followed the law.
Needless to say such an egregious invasion of privacy provoked a deservedly vigorous response. While many have pointed out their flagrant folly in establishing 'safe' areas for criminals to operate, I'd like to point out another failure of foresight on the part of the paper that seems to have gone largely unmentioned. Not all of those weapons are in the hands of collectors, sportsman, and target shooters. I'd venture a guess that a fair percentage of the guns are registered to those who might someday have occasion to need them. Judges, lawyers, police, probation and parole officers, and corrections officers, either active or retired, who by virtue of doing the jobs we pay them for, have acquired the animus of the worst among us. Add to them all those hiding in fear from abusive former partners, and the witnesses whose testimony has sent criminals to jail. All of their lives have been endangered by the papers depraved indifference to who and where they are, and why they own a gun.

A free press is fundamentally a good thing, but when it proclaims itself the ultimate arbiter of the possessions and privacy of law abiding citizens, and in doing so endangers their lives and families, it has gone way beyond any reasonable interpretation of anyone's "right to know". In at least one New York county, the administration understands that. Putnam County"There is the rule of law, and there is right and wrong and the Journal
News is clearly wrong," Sant said in a statement. "I could not live with
myself if one Putnam pistol permit holder was put in harm's way, for
the sole purpose of selling newspapers."Of course, with the usual insufferable arrogance of the press, the paper will doubtless be contesting that decision. Stay tuned.

Posted by
viburnum

13 comments:

Constitutional Insurgent
said...

This is the same 'news' organization that more recently attempted to proffer that one could simply order a firearm on the internet and have it shipped to ones home, absent background check.

They presented this falsehood in their weak attempt to defend their position of posting government information about gun owners. Note the difference, Government information is not the same as Public information, and as such should not be able to be disseminated by random busybodies.

This is the same 'news' organization that attempted to proffer the notion that one could simply order a firearm on the internet and receive it at home, absent background check.

They did this in a weak attempt to defend their action of publishing the names and addresses [where even a simple non-attributed cluster map would have sufficed] of lawfully registered gun owners. An act they would likely not commit if the subject were convicted felons.

This data was Government information, not public information, and as such should have been protected from dissemination by busybodies with political agendas.

Obviously the NY Journal News has an agenda: an anti-gun agenda. I doubt they would be willing to publish a map with names and addresses of those who had Planned Parennthood abortions because that would be against their agenda.

"Being included in these maps does not mean the individual at a specific location owns a weapon, just that they are licensed to do so."

Licensed to do so? The right to keep and bear arms pre-exists the Constitution as a natural right, and the Constitution specifically forbids any abridgement of this right. ALL gun laws are unconstitutional, and people trying to enforce them should be shot as traitors.

I think as part of any new national gun legislation, one law should be that gun registrant lists should be excluded from FOIA requirements.

It is extremely irresponsible to disclose this information. Only law enforcement, judicial, and regulatory bodies should be availed registrant information, and they should not be allowed to share it with the public unless it is relevant to a particular criminal case.

Think about abused women in hiding, informants, police and guards, and on and on.

This paper did something extremely irresponsible and it's time congress, or at least the states, reacts to prevent this in the future.

And as Silver points out, by default this paper has created a list of ostensibly unarmed people.

We can not have responsible gun regulation while we also have irresponsible registrant disclosure. This is a two-way street, and there must be rules of both sides of the road.

When the government, itself, becomes Public Enemy Number One, the only sane thing to do is to GO UNDERGROUND.

When the law is unjust and insane and administered by an equally unjust, insane establishment determined NOT to represent our best interests as individual citizens, it is our RIGHT to ALTER -- or better yet -- ABOLISH the Establishment.

I read somewhere recently "The men who take our guns will be protected by guns for the rest of their lives". My husband is threatened every day on his job. We cannot afford fancy armed guards "men in black" types. Our man in black is our gun. Just look at the dirt bag that invaded a women's home - in Georgia I think. She retreated into a crawl space in her home, he followed, she shot him. This P#s*y cried and wined for help along the side of the road. He will get out of jail and victimize someone else not so lucky and brave with a gun.

The Founding Fathers and those who fought in the Continental Army were our original Western Heroes, guided by the thinkers of the Enlightenment and following in the footsteps of great warriors like Jan Sobieski and Charles Martel.